


Erosion

by Ancalimë (Cymbidia)



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief Orc related body horror, Fourth Age, Gen, Last Ship to Valinor, Maglor feels, Self-Flagellation, Speculation on the creation of orcs, Suffering, so warning for non-graphic mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:53:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29084943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cymbidia/pseuds/Ancalim%C3%AB
Summary: Maglor holes up on Himling Isle, gnaws on raw fish, and sings nonstop, until he's become a pale shadow of his former self. Hence, Elf-Gollum.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Erosion

**Author's Note:**

> HEY! I'M BACK! I'M BACK ON MY MAGLOR BULLSHIT! I thought I wouldn't be writing any Silm fic this year but joke's on me. This occurred to me just before bed so I booted up my PC, typed and edited it in one sitting, and. Welp. Here's some suffering! It's 3am now, please forgive any typos. Sorry.  
> You know I'm a Maglor stan who wants only emotionally healing fix-its for him but sometimes you just have to make him suffer a bit. He does get a non-miserable ending though!

The first orcs were all pallid, milky creatures. Emaciated, misshapen, scarred, each one white as the glistening bellies of subterranean fish, dull eyes glistening void-black, with metal claws for fingernails. The process became refined, in later years. They grew stronger, sleeker, further from the old elf-shape. They were no longer twisted and bent in a laborious process, but melted down and poured efficiently into unwholesome new moulds. They were then carefully husbanded, like hounds, for desirable attributes and optimised utility. The scarred, pallid creatures faded out of use, and orcs became stronger and hardier, their translucent skin taking on unnatural green flushes of vitality. They relearned how to use swords, how to wear armour, how to manufacture according to instructions, how to toil. They never relearned how to create of their own accord. Melkor no longer had use of his initial experiments.

Nevertheless, no elf who witnessed them could forget the sight of that first generation of orcs. The visceral pity they evoked was strong enough to cause physical anguish, in a few particularly tender souls.

The elves in Aman did not think of them. They had stories about kin who were taken and sometimes glimpsed in the dark, twisted reflections of familiar faces that were likelier ghosts sent to haunt them or dark visions of terror sent by the magicks of the then unknown Enemy, but all their stories were indistinct nightmares of the past rather than concrete horrors. Those who stayed behind did not have the privilege of forgetting.

After the Darkening, the Noldor Returned learned very quickly to stop flinching from them.

They were dumber than later batches of orcs, more tractable than the unaltered thralls of Angband, and much less useful in battle than either kind. The Enemy delighted to send them out at the front of his army. The Elven thralls usually had enough strength to either escape or martyr themselves, or else think of Mandos and be slain with indifference, and others became corrupted in less visceral ways, and took up arms for the Enemy without losing their Elven nature. But those wretched creatures, huddling away from the bite of the whip, shuddering with fear of every weapon, indifferent to either friend or foe, made the greatest vanguard for each battle formation. They were pushed to the front, where they made the elves hesitate to strike. In later battles, after the hearts of the Eldar had become hardened, the shapes of those wretched creatures were still familiar enough to Elvenkind that Morgoth often ordered battles to be preceded by the slaughter and dismemberment of a few of the orcs, and for their rent bodies to be flung in the face of the elves as the opening volley.

It delighted the Enemy to see those almost-Elven creatures slaughtered in front of the host of trembling, dismayed Noldor. The Sindar had wisened up to this particular tact long ago, and now refused to be moved by them, but the Noldor! The trembling Noldor! So full of rage, so full of fear. It hurt them cruelly, a new cut instead of an old scar.

Fëanor was lost quickly to the Balrogs, and Maedhros was captured. In his years of torment, he learned a little of what kinds of suffering might destroy the nature of a creature without killing its fleshly body. The process was never truly initiated upon him, his identity too important, but for all that his torment lacked the necessary intent and design, he suffered all the same, and his oath bound him to the world as surely as the vile magics of Angband bound the souls of all its other chattel.

Maglor never bore such cruelty from another.

No one struck him, or branded him, or tore out his nails. No one stole the light of his eyes or the keenness of his vision. No one drove him with a whip, no one denied him sustenance of the body, no one taught him to be a vessel to cruelty and pain. No one turned him inside out, dug hooks into his soul, whispered words of a language from before the world was dreamed, pronounced foul dreams the flesh were not meant to witness, then sutured his soul back to his body like a cockentrice.

He did not need the forgemasters of Melkor, or the lesser imitations of Sauron. He transformed himself.

He did not look at his reflection in the water. It was caught halfway between the gaunt, emaciated suffering of Maedhros and the twisted, indifferent ugliness of those pale worms.

After he tossed his Silmaril into the sea, he made his home upon lonely Himling Isle, taking shelter in what had once been the cellar of a watchtower. No structure survived aboveground, but the cellar was only a burrow in the ground. 

Salt turned his hair ash white. The glare of the sun made his eyes weak and watery. The long years of brining turned his skin rough and dry. He ate only when he had to, catching fish with his bare hands. His nails became ragged and often split apart. One hand was gnarled and useless. The other was calloused with the work of living. Fresh water was scarce, and he only drank it when the rain delivered it. There was no fruit to be had, no crisp green vegetables, no savoury red meats. No birds, no rabbits, only what he gleaned from the sea. He did not have fire - where would he get his wood? He did not have the clever solar powered cooking pans that he’d once helped to devise, for hunting trips with Elrond and Elros.

He was skeletal. His skin sagged on his face unnaturally. He did not speak, but murmured a song at a constant whisper. He paused only to eat and drink, when his body drove him to it. Otherwise he shut himself in the cellar, hid from the sun and the moon and the sea roaring outside his door, and croaked out his dirge like a noisome frog.

The years passed indifferently. Sometimes visitors came to see the Isle, but few knew how to open the cellar door, and he hid away from them, quietening himself and contenting himself with merely mouthing the words of his unceasing ballad. Occasionally visitors came to see him, and when he refused to come out of the cellar, left bits of sustenance - casks of water, loaves of bread, fresh fruits, thick jams, and hardy cheeses. Clothes appeared sometimes. Once, a flute.

Maglor took the rest, not too proud for charity, though he was too proud to show his face. He did not touch the flute, and it eventually rotted away.

Sometimes, there would be lembas. He stored those little packets away in the cellar, but never dared to open one. Did he think himself undeserving of the succour they gave? Or was he simply afraid? Afraid, somewhere in his heart, that the blessings worked into lembas was too much of Yavanna, and would burn him as surely as the blessings of Varda? He sometimes used a bit of their crumb as bait for the fish and the shellfish, when he went too long without eating and could not muster the energy to dive.

The sun rose and set. The tides eroded the fringes of the islet little by little. Once, a great wave swept over the isle, drenching Maglor and washing him out to sea. He swam back, salvaged what could be salvaged from the flooded cellar, and waited for the water inside to evaporate. He sang all the while, and hummed when under water. The world had gained a curvature, and the tantalising gleam of Tol Eressëa dipped out of his sight with the bent horizon. He was indifferent.

Shadows rose and fell, in this direction and that. The clouds darkened, steadily, year after year. Sometimes, the deliveries tapered of for weeks or months or years, as the darkness coalesced into war. Maglor remained indifferent.

The islet became smaller and smaller, as more and more of it was licked away by the sea. The cellar was soon underwater, unusable. Maglor moved his few things to higher ground, and finally eschewed the last vestige of shelter.

Arien liked him little, Tilion was uncaring. Sometimes, a particular star gleamed in the heavens, and caused him to weep as he continued in his unceasing song. Sometimes, a particular star glittered under distant waves, and he did not know whether it was the taunting of Ulmo or the simple principle of reflection.

One day, an Elven vessel sailed to the islet. It had been some time since he had last had a delivery. He now had to swim away from the islet entirely, in order to hide. However, this was not a vessel that he could hide from.

It was not a light canoe or a compact sailboat, but one of the ships of Lindon. It was the chief of those great ships in fact, a ship that Círdan first dreamt of in the years before the Sun. A canoe was lowered from its side, and a solitary figure rowed over to the islet.

Maglor sat, gnawing a fish, contemplating the approaching confrontation. It had been some time since he spoke to anyone but the sea. 

His humming faded into silence as the splashing of oars grew louder.

Celeborn sprang off the boat, and landed in front of Maglor. Maglor looked up at him, blinking weakly.

“This is the last ship,” said Celeborn. “Come. This islet will soon be swallowed entirely by Ulmo.”

Maglor wiped his mouth with the back of a sleeve. “It is not permitted. I will find another island, when that happens,” he answered at the barest whisper. It sounded more like a sigh of the wind than the voice of an Elf who could once cleave gold with his song alone.

“The Ban has been lifted,” Celeborn said, ignoring his protest. “Galadriel went on ahead of me some years ago, and your Elrond too. This is the last ship. It is permitted. Go with us.”

Maglor set the half eaten bit of fish down on the ground.

“Galadriel too?” he rasped.

“Galadriel too,” Celeborn replied.

Maglor stood.

“I must be stopped, if it is not permitted,” he said, staring at the water wetting his bare toes. The waves made no reply.

Maglor climbed into the boat, and trembled as it was rowed back towards the ship, then hoisted up onto the deck with winches.

Círdan was waiting for them, along with a number of other elves. Some were almost as wild as Maglor, though none were half as emaciated. One or two were so faded they verged upon transparency. There were Noldor and Sindar both, and even a handful of Avari.

Maglor climbed out of the boat and onto the deck, then fell to all fours as he felt the world shift. The curved horizon straightened, and the shape of the world uncurled into the Straight Road. He gazed westwards, to the horizon.

He wept.

It took two weeks to reach Tol Eressëa.

**Author's Note:**

> And he lived happily ever after, singing and eating raw fish and self-flagellating on an otherwise uninhabited islet near Tol Eressëa until the end of his infinite days! Just joking, I'm sorry. He gets some help and gets some hugs and gets to sleep in a real bed for the first time in 6500+ years. Maybe even some therapy.


End file.
